#MCN2015 Part one
This year at #MCN2015 I was part of a session that looked at some of the words we use in the field—words that appear over and over, but that seem to have lost (or perhaps never really had) a clear meaning. It was such a pleasure, both because I got to do this session with fantastic people whose work I admire—Jeffrey Inscho and Ed Rodley—but also because it was a really lively, interactive session and I love nothing so much as a room full of excited museum folk having at something.

People came!
There are always sticky words in any field, but the three that really stood out when we were first talking about proposing a session were content, digital, and engagement. We gave an introduction to the issues around the semantics and slippery usages of these words in particular (and buzzwords in general), and then split into breakout groups focusing on one of the three words.
Jeff took on “content,” Ed took “digital” (a topic about which he had given a rousing Ignite talk the night before), and I took “engagement.” Each group switched through the three words so we could try to capture input from everyone who came to the session.
With each group I asked if people had either ideas for alternative words that could be used instead of engagement, and also asked if everyone had ideas of how to contribute to a common definition for engagement (particularly if we couldn’t find a better word to replace engagement). The convergences and divergences in the lists, rounding up three groups’ worth of contributions, are fascinating.
Alternative words seemed to be a bit more of a challenge, and for many participants they said they thought their word could be either an alternative or part of the definition of engagement—and there is a lot of overlap between the two categories. The full lists are at the bottom of the post. (For both lists I’ve kept in duplicates, indicating that more than one group came up with the same word. Words that appear on both lists are bolded).
There were some themes in the conversations that happened with each group. Connecting, immersion, action/interaction, and sharing were among the ideas that cropped up repeatedly. With one group there was an interesting point that was raised by someone whose work focuses on social media—that for her engagement was clicks, follows, views. For others in the groups, particularly those in education and interpretation, attendance was the a starting point—perhaps not really counted as engagement, which seemed to require a deeper connection than bodies in the door. Several people raised the connection between engagement and measurement or evaluation. For me, one of the most thought-provoking comments (which came up in two of the groups) was when one person said that engagement for us was seeing visitors doing what we want them to do. It was a great moment in my own processing of what the term means, how we use it, and why it is good practice to interrogate why we choose the words we choose and what we actually mean by them.
For me this was something of a continuation of some of the ideas that bubbled up in a panel I was part of at #MCN2014 in Dallas. The idea behind both discussions is really one of mindfulness. (Including reminding myself to be mindful in using slippery terms). There is no perfect word. One of the participants noted that “learning” was the word that was used all over in the place of engagement in the past, but that learning fell out of fashion and engagement fell into fashion. For me, rather than finding a perfect word, I’m trying to focus on being mindful about the words I use, and to define what I mean when I say engagement, or content, or digital. I’d love to hear what you think.
Alternative words
Attendance
Attention
Care
Changed
Collaboration
Connection with People
Conversation!
Discovery
Digital
Education
Emotional Connection
Empathize
Entertain
Exploration
Financial Support
Immersed/Immersion
Impact
Inspire
Interface
Interactivity
Investment
Involvement
Involvement
Marketing
Measurable
Membership
Participation
Participation
Participation
Reflection
Sharing
Totally Absorbing
Definition of Engagement
Absorbing
Action
Action
Activating the Mind
Amplified
Attendance
Attracting attention
Being Present
Being (Present)
Care
Choice
Clicks
Collaborative
Committed
Connected
Connection
Connection with people
Connecting to prior knowledge
Contributing to
Conversation
Creation
Crying
Deeper Understanding
Degree of the depth of content
Democratization
Did they do what we want?
Doing
Duration
Education
Engrossing
Feel
Financial Support
Financial Support
Flow
Focus
Follows
Fun
Guessing
Holding attention
Imaginative
Immersed
Immersive
Interacting With
Interaction
Interactivity
Interest inspiring
Interface
Interior engagement vs. exterior
Interpretation
Laughing
Learning
Listening
Making
Measurement
Nounification
Part of how we define success
Participate
Participation
Personal
Perspective shift
Relevance
Remembering
Responding to
Results
Reward
Safety
Saying
Sharing
Sharing
Sharing
Semantics matter
Signs of engagement
Social practice
Thinking
Time investment
To be absorbed in
Use
Views
Visitor vs. museum perspective
What we want the visitor to do
If you aren’t already following Ed Rodley’s blog, Thinking About Museums, you should go check out his recap of how we talk about “digital” here.